BRIAN JOHNSON ｜ Theory, Practice, Mastery
Episode Stats
Length
1 hour and 4 minutes
Words per Minute
203.05698
Summary
In this episode, Ryan Michler sits down with Brian Johnson, founder and CEO of Heroic Public Benefit Corporation and author of Activate Your Heroic Potential, to talk about what it means to be a man and how to reclaim and restore masculinity.
Transcript
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We all know there's a formula for success in any venture. We've all heard things like success
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leaves clues and seen certain people replicate success over and over and over again. And yet
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so many men struggle to create and maintain success on the professional and personal front
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of their lives. That's why it's so important that we learn what protocols are required to achieve
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Johnson to talk about his theory of Arte and why success on any level is so simple, yet so elusive.
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We talk about what confidence in others actually is and how to develop it, how talent won't get you
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all the way to your goals, why intrinsic motivation must be your pursuit and the Stockdale paradox and
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how to use it to your advantage. You're a man of action. You live life to the fullest.
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Embrace your fears and boldly chart your own path. When life knocks you down, you get back up one
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more time, every time. You are not easily deterred or defeated, rugged, resilient, strong. This is
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your life. This is who you are. This is who you will become at the end of the day. And after all
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is said and done, you can call yourself a man. Gentlemen, what is going on today? My name is
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Ryan Michler. I'm the host and the founder of the Order of Man podcast and movement. Welcome here today
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and welcome back. As I try to say every week, thank you for being here. It's very important to me that I
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express gratitude because this podcast, this movement and where I am personally in my own life
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would just not be the same without you guys tuning in, being an example, leading your own families and
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businesses and communities. And I want to make sure I always express gratitude for that. Also, I would
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humbly ask that you share this podcast with a friend or a family member that might find value
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from what we do, which is to reclaim and restore masculinity. And then the last thing I want to do
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before I get into my conversation with Brian is mention my friends and show sponsors over at
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Montana knife company.com. Obviously they make knives. They have a hard time, quite honestly, not selling
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knives, but promoting what they do because our technical or social media overlords, as we often
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have heard, uh, don't like the idea of them sharing their knives and hunting stories, which is what so
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many of us as men, uh, bond around. I, I had a friend over, uh, 10 minutes ago when we were talking
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about hunting stories and sharing laughs and, and, and memories. And it all happens around hunting. And if
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you're a hunter, you're always looking for a good knife. And I would look no further than Montana
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knife company.com use the code order of man at checkout and you'll save some money when you buy
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one of their 100% made America knives. Also make sure just check out the order of man store, brand
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new beanies, brand new hats, brand new hoodies, brand new shirts. You can do that at store.orderofman.com
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enough of the shameless plugs. Let me introduce you to one of my favorite guests. Quite honestly,
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that's a question I get all the time. Who are your favorite guests? This guy is so good.
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His name is Brian Johnson. He is the founder and CEO of heroic public benefit corporation.
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He's also the author of Arate, which is a subtitled activate your heroic potential. He's 50% philosopher,
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50% CEO. And as he says, he's 101% committed to helping create a world in which 51% of humanity
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is flourishing by the year, 2051. We talk a little bit more about that because that's a pretty audacious
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goal. Uh, as a founder and CEO, he's raised over $25 million. He's made crowdfunding history and he's
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built to and sold, uh, social media platforms, uh, as a philosopher and teacher, he's helped millions of
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people from around the world. He's trained over 10,000 heroic coaches from over 100 countries.
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And he's created some very powerful protocols that science suggests changes lives.
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Brian, what's up brother. So great to see you. Glad you could join me on the podcast. I know you're in
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the car, but you know what, who cares? Sometimes we just need to make things happen. And, uh, that's
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what we do as men. So I'm glad you're here. Let's go. We embrace reality. Do what needs to
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get done. I appreciate you, man. Been really looking forward to our chat.
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It's interesting. Cause you know, I, I want to put together a good show, a highly produced show,
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a high quality show. I want the audio to look good and the video to look good and all of that's
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important. But I think what resonates with at least just anecdotally listening to the guys that
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tune into our podcast is real conversations, you know, guys having conversations about
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what struggles they're dealing with. Uh, you know, I, I don't, I don't know why you're in the car.
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Maybe you just had to pick up your daughter cause she's sick or something like that. You know,
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it's like life happens. I'll tell you, dude, dentist, my wife asked me to go to this one
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dentist. We're 90 minutes away. I've rescheduled twice. And these guys couldn't get me in for another
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like three months. I'm like, all right, I gotta go. So there you go. That's how it goes. So, um,
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guys, look, if you're looking at somebody and you think that, you know, Brian has it all figured out
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or I have it all figured out. I don't want to speak for you, but I think I can be so bold to say,
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no, we don't have it all figured out. Trust me. We do not have it all figured out.
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I will, I will affirm that if my wife was here, she can tell you that that is in fact true. So
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you got a new book coming out, man. It's called Arate. Uh, and I'm, I'm, I'm very interested in
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the word itself. You know, I'm a, I'm a big fan of, uh, Ed Milad and Andy Frisilla. Both of them
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are friends of mine and they've got their Arate syndicate. And I actually don't know much about
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the word other than, uh, you know, maybe some level of excellence. I think it's, I think it's a
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Greek word. Uh, so if you would, please give me, give me the definition of Arate and why you decided
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to write a book or at least cover the topic of, of Arate. Yeah, dude. Well, before I wrote a book,
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I tattooed my, I got this little blur thing on, so you can't see, I got an Arate tattoo on my right arm.
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So Arate, you're exactly right. We translate the ancient Greek word as excellence or virtue.
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Uh, but the way I like to frame it up is if you ask the ancient, you know, Greek philosophers,
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Aristotle, Socrates, Plato, or the Roman Stoics, Aurelius, Epictetus, Seneca, how to live a good
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life, a good, noble, heroic life, they'd answer you in a single word. That word is Arate. So again,
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it means excellence or virtue, but it has a deeper meaning, something closer to being your best self
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moment to moment to moment. And in any given moment, you're capable of being this. And if you're
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actually being this, and there's a gap between who you could have been and who you're actually being,
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that's where regret, anxiety, disillusionment, depression exists. When you close the gap,
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you're living with Arate, you're being your best self. And you feel this deep sense of, of meaning,
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purpose. It was the summum bonum of the ancient world, the greatest good to close that gap,
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to be your best self. They call that eudaimonia. But anyway, that's the one word summation of my
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life's work. What all ancient wisdom, traditions, philosophers, faith traditions, and modern science
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says is how you live a good life. Yeah, that's, you know, as you were talking about the gap from
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where you want to be or who you could be to who you actually are. I know a lot of guys that have
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listened to the podcast have heard me talk about the integrity gap. And that's exactly what you're
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talking about right now. We all have it. It all exists. And the larger it is, the more depressed,
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the more anxious, the more potentially even suicidal that you are. The guys that I work
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with on a daily basis who are really, really struggling with self-confidence issues. I know
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you talk a lot about that in the book, struggle with interpersonal relationships with spouses and
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friends and kids. Their integrity gap is so wide. It's really difficult for them to function with any
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sort of mastery in their life, which is another point that you talk often about as well.
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A hundred percent. I mean, that's at the end of the day, that's it. Are you living in integrity
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with your highest ideals? Now, you'll never do it perfectly, but you got to do it more and more
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consistently. And as you know, I talk a lot about forging anti-fragile confidence. And, you know,
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if you want confidence, the word means intense trust, confidering with intense trust. If you and I
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are going to trust each other, I got to do what I say I'm going to do. If I don't show up for,
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you know, our time together today, you may give me one pass, man. But if I did it again,
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you'd be like, I don't trust this guy and you shouldn't trust me. So if you want to have trust
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in yourself, you want to have confidence in yourself, you got to do what you say you will
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do. You say you're going to eat, you're going to move, you're going to sleep in certain ways.
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You're going to spend time with your kids in a certain way. You're going to treat your spouse
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in a certain way. And you don't, you're eroding your trust every single time you allow that integrity
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gap to come into play. And stated positively, when you turn the corner and you start more consistently
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doing those little things, your life changes. And again, I talk about moving from just forging
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what I call anti-fragility, which we might talk about, but yeah, integrity gap is what it's all
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about. It is really interesting to see guys who will do something as seemingly insignificant as hit
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their snooze the first thing in the morning. And then they'll wonder why the rest of their day goes
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bad. Well, the very first thing you did is you lied to yourself. You told yourself you're going to
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get out of bed at five o'clock or six o'clock or nine o'clock or whatever your time is.
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And the very first action of the day was a lie. It was, it was, it was a deceit. You deceived
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yourself. And I, the language that I use, and I'm not pointing fingers. I talk to myself like this too,
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is a little bit of our soul dies when we do that. Dude. And again, Abraham Maslow says the great
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humanistic psychologist, he came up with the whole hierarchy of needs, the self-actualizing
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individual. That dude's intense. He said that every single time you deviate from what you're
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capable of doing, it makes an imprint on your consciousness. And those days that start with
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a snooze, then they go here, here, here, here, here, you know, and you took all these steps back.
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Those are the days you want to numb yourself. That's the day you, you know, you binge drink,
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you binge eat, you binge watch, you do whatever you do to ignore the fact that you were so far out of
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integrity. Now, again, stating, stating it positively, it's the little things, you know, it's the John
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wouldn't put on your socks, get the little tiny mundane things, right? You build this trust,
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you dominate the fundamentals, um, and you can fundamentally and permanently change your life
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as you recreate that trust with yourself, deepen relationships and all that stuff.
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Uh, I, I can't remember who it was. Uh, there was a, a naval, uh, admiral, I believe, uh, who did a
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speech and then eventually wrote a book called make your bed, make your bed, dude. Admiral McRaven,
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head of so-called. I was like, this is total bullshit. I'm like, this is so dumb. Make your
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bed. Come on. Like this guy can clearly give us a better message than this. And, you know,
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the more I dive into that, the more I make my bed, the more I do the little things, whether it's,
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you know, seeing a piece of trash on the ground and picking it up, um, or, you know, instead of
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stepping over it, like we often do. Um, or if I'm, you know, painting my room, you know, I could say,
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ah, leave that corner. It's good enough. No, it's not good enough. Like do all the little
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things exceptionally well, because every little thing counts to the fullest.
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So dude, so I'm seeing on your wall, you know, you got protect. And I want to talk about that
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because that's what my business heroic is all about. But, uh, it would, that was Admiral McRaven,
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head of so calm. Um, I gave a talk for the U S men's national team the other day before they play
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their game. And they came, they wanted me to come in and talk about anti-fragile confidence.
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And I introduced the head coach to another friend of mine. Here's the former head of
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Naval special warfare. He ran seal team six dev group, you know, when we did, uh, the minimum
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odd mission and all that stuff. Anyway, he's talking about, you know, the U S team wants
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to win the world cup in 2026. That's as close to as impossible as you're going to get, you
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know what I mean? Let's go. That's a big climb. So he and I traded some texts with the head coach
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and he said, if you want to achieve non-linear things, AKA do what many seats see to be
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impossible. It's the tiniest little things that matter the most, those tiny little marginal
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gains, those little things that you don't think matter become the things that separate
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you from your prior self and connect you to that best version of you. Um, and it's exciting.
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These are not chores. This isn't another list of chores that you have to do. This is a simple
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formula through which you can express the best version of yourself, but you got to be intense.
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You got to be willing to be all in, stay grounded, obviously, but show up like you mean it.
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Um, and life takes on a whole different meaning, you know, and we've been blessed to serve people
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at the highest end of, you know, the military and executives and sports and whatnot, and people
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who don't want to get out of bed tomorrow morning. And it's the same exact game plan, be your best
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self moment to moment to moment. And when you do that, um, some powerful things start to happen,
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you know? Well, and it's interesting too, because you can see it at, at the, at the smallest
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level. So one thing I've always really enjoyed doing is coaching my son's, uh, baseball and
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football and basketball teams about the time they get to seven, eight years old, they outgrow
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my basketball coaching. Cause that's not my sport, baseball, football. I could coach them all the way
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through high school, but basketball, I'm like, all right, you're, you, I don't know what I'm doing
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anymore. You need to go with a better coach at this point. And so I'm coaching my youngest son's
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basketball team. He's seven years old and there's this little kid on the team and he's the stud,
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right? Like he's the stud of the team and every team has one and every team knows who the stud is
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and the reason he's a stud granted. Yeah, I know there's, there's some personality in there.
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Um, there's probably just some tenacity. There's just some mental and physical development that you
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could attribute it to, but you know, the kid plays at home, you know, he's got a basketball
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hoop at home, you know, dad or mom is out there every day throwing, you know, working on passes,
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working on shots, talking about mentality. This is a seven, eight year old kid. And we see it at
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that level. And then we don't think is I'm 42 years old that at 42 years old, it applies to a guy
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like myself when clearly it applies to a seven year old, let alone a 42 year old.
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Dude. So Angela Duckworth wrote the book on grit, right? So the science of grit and, and my son's
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into chess. And so he, he six months ago, you know, got into it a year ago, he got into it six months
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ago. He just started destroying me. So we reached that point. It's like, don't listen to anything I
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have to say about chess. You listen to your coach for that, but I'm pretty good at the other stuff.
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But what Angela, so peak performance, et cetera, but Angela Duckworth says that talent matters.
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Talent is the speed with which you pick up a skill. So, you know, my son has an aptitude for chess.
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That kid probably has an aptitude for basketball, but talent does nothing without effort. Talent
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times effort or reps on the small things equals skill, skill times more effort equals achievement.
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So effort counts twice in everything we want to do. And then it's just a matter of time and reps.
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What do you want in your life? What do you need to do to get it? Start paying the price.
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And then the, you know, the harder you work, the more little things you do, the faster you pay that
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price, the more you're going to achieve the results that you want to achieve in any aspect of your life,
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whether it's a seven-year-old on the basketball court or us, you know, in the metaphorical or real
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boardroom. These things are not that complicated. And then the way that I frame it up for the guys and
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women we work with is think back to a time in your past when you were at your best. We've all experienced
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peak moments, whether it was a day, a week, a month, a year, or a decade. What were you doing when you were
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at your best? Make a list of the things you were doing, the things you weren't doing. And what's one thing
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you're currently not doing that you were doing when you were at your best? Get on that. Make your prior best
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your new baseline. Like that and anti-fragility were the two things that the, uh, the soccer guys
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like the most, you know, and one of the most is if you have achieved a high level of success in the
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past, don't give up your gains. Know what that was that you were doing, create a protocol, um,
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and then work it, especially when you don't feel like it, which is a whole nother chat about
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emotional stamina and how you actually create anti-fragility. Um, but yeah, man, it really isn't that
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complicated. Um, as they say, you know, it's simple, but not easy. Um, but it's also exciting
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because when you get it and you start executing it, um, things can change.
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Are, are there things, you know, as you talk about that list, uh, you know, are there certain things
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that, um, higher performers execute on not just specific to their craft, but just generalized,
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you know, I think we were talking about Andy Priscilla earlier. And so I, I'm sure you're familiar
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with Andy and you've got a program like 75 hard where it's, you know, drink so much water,
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read 10 pages a day, get two workouts at a day, a day, you know, those things, that's the list.
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And I know that when I was doing that list performance was through the roof. Are there,
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are there things that high performers do every day that make a huge difference regardless of what
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their skillset or their chosen, you know, profession or craft is? Yeah. So I like to split the
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fundamentals up into two things, the idiosyncratic, this is your craft. This is what you need to do.
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And then the kind of general and universal. Um, but I would offer that, that the individual
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listening to this, um, right now, think about what you did when you're at your best. I can give you,
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and I'll talk about eating, moving, sleeping, breathing, and focusing your mind, which are the
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five fundamentals. I stress again and again and again, but at the end of the day, we've each
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experienced a really high level of performance in our energy, our work, and our love. And we just
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need to slow down long enough to do an inventory of the things that we were doing and then do them.
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And I come back to that one exercise all the time, which is what's the number one thing I could start
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doing that if I started doing, it would most change my life. And what's the number one thing I know I
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need to stop doing that if I stopped doing, it would change my life. I've done that when I've been
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really experiencing hard times and I do it every single time I want to go next level, which is right
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now. So every day I'm asking myself that question, you know, and I'm getting the data and I'm looking at
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what work, what works and what doesn't, etc. But again, the eating, the moving, the sleeping, the
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breathing, the focusing, getting your energy dialed in, becoming more productive, and then deepening
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your personal relationships are the three areas that I focus in energy, work and love, we call it the big
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three. And then it's obvious stuff, you know, we all know what we could be doing nutrition wise, the
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question are you doing it? Sleep is my, my personal, both kryptonite when I'm not paying attention to it
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and superpower when I am. So I get sleep, I sleep like I'm a world class athlete, dude. And I train
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like I'm an athlete and I show up with my physical presence that way. And then work, I've got certain
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things I do. I'm creative before reactive. So I don't open up my inbox, whether it's text or email
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until I've done the most important thing that day. I pause, I think about what I need to get done. And I do
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that what we call it what's important now my win. And then I do some very basic things in my
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relationship. I recommit to being with my wife, we've been together for 17 years, I want to be
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with her for at least 51 years, I recommit to that. And being best friends with my adult kids every
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single morning. And then I create little micro moments with my wife and with my kids, without my
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phone where I'm just connected to them. Very, very simple things that we architected our heroic app
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around this to create a protocol that you execute consistently. Those are a few of the fundamental
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things that we teach. But I'll emphasize again, we each have a certain set of things we do and we're
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at our best. And my big thing is I need to help you figure out what it is, and then help you light
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your own fire and then do it every single day, especially on the days you don't feel like it.
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Yeah, I mean, I already know what mine are. My issues are sleeping, because I don't like to go
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to sleep at night. It almost feels like a waste of time. I know how important it is. I know the
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science. I've read all the data. I've gone through it. Everybody tells me how important it is. I'm like,
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oh, I don't want to sleep. I want to send this email out, or I want to read the rest of this book,
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or I want to watch that show or call that person. So it's that. The other one is nutrition,
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because I'm busy. So I'm running from appointment to appointment to this to that. I'm like, all right,
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let me just run through the drive through it, the fast food place of choice, instead of meal prep.
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Those are my big issues. I know if I stopped doing that, that alone would make a huge difference.
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But the other thing that gets to me, and I want to know what you think about this, is we're bombarded
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with minutia. Today, I had to go to the DMV, and I set up an appointment at the DMV, which is a
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pretty cool service. My appointment was at 1040, but still, they didn't call me until 1055. So 15
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minutes late, even past the appointment, the lady there, surprisingly, she was a pleasant lady,
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which isn't, you know, a place that's notorious for pleasant people. You know, and it's like,
00:21:48.820
and then the other day, some, some woman, she turned into the wrong lane, and she slammed into
00:21:54.060
my car. And you know, now I got to drive to the neighboring town, and I got to take my car into
00:21:59.260
the collision center, so they can give me an estimate on the truck. And it's all this little
00:22:04.440
bullshit that comes up, that man, if I could recapture two hours of my day, that isn't filled
00:22:10.280
with nonsense, then yeah, I could eat a little better, or I could sleep a few more hours, or I
00:22:16.520
could read a few more pages of the Bible, or whatever, you know, arete, or whatever book I
00:22:21.840
was reading at the time. Yeah, so for me, I know what it feels like to feel highs and lows. So I
00:22:28.180
wanted to end my own life 25 years ago. That's where I was. My dad struggled with alcohol. I know
00:22:32.240
we've got some stuff in common with kind of my father was there physically, but not emotionally,
00:22:37.060
you know, good man, but worked in a grocery store for 39 years struggle with alcohol. I would have
00:22:41.600
too, if I had five kids trying to raise five kids going to Catholic school. Yeah, no doubt.
00:22:47.240
His dad struggled with alcohol ended his own life, etc. So so, you know, I jokingly say I lost the
00:22:53.160
lottery on the genetics and the environment on that one. So I know what it feels like to feel the depths
00:22:57.520
of despair. And I know what it feels like to feel very, very, very good and grounded and just performing
00:23:03.440
at a very high level. And so if I don't get seven, like last night, I got eight hours of
00:23:08.600
sleep, which is my kind of sweet spot baseline, you know, eight, eight and a half hours of sleep,
00:23:13.740
I'm feeling I'm completely different human being than six and a half. And I like feeling like that,
00:23:19.460
that my mind works like that race car that just needs a certain type of fuel, which includes sleep
00:23:24.800
for me. So I can get more done on a night that I've gotten a great night of sleep than a day
00:23:29.440
in like in three hours, dude, then I can get done it all day on six, six and a half,
00:23:34.280
even seven hours of sleep. So I've made that connection. So then I've prioritized my sleep
00:23:38.580
where I shut down. And I'm getting up at four, 435am without an alarm, because I go to bed at
00:23:43.820
seven, 738. And again, I'm that guy. But we live in the country, we homeschool, they're not playing
00:23:48.740
sports at late. And I go to bed when the kids go to bed an hour and a half after the sun sets.
00:23:52.460
Um, so you know, I'm in bed for eight to nine hours a night. And I prioritize that
00:23:57.480
because I know that I perform at my best. But you know, Bezos talks about the same thing.
00:24:03.140
Buffett talks about the same thing. You look at LeBron James, you look at these Roger Federer,
00:24:06.820
the great athletes prioritize sleep. So I get more done in less time, because I'm at my best. And then
00:24:13.860
I trade off things like I don't I don't care what's happening in the sports world. I don't care
00:24:18.760
what's happening on Netflix. I just don't care. I want to be on the other side of the TV screen,
00:24:24.020
if you will, you know, I want to create a life of meaning. I want to be the hero of my own story.
00:24:27.700
So I've said no, to a ton of stuff. And my joke to guys is, yeah, let me follow you around for a
00:24:32.540
day. And let's see if we can find 10, 15, 30, 60, 90 minutes, where we can reprioritize a little bit,
00:24:38.740
you know what I mean? And it's always in the bathroom, get out of the bathroom with your phone.
00:24:42.780
That's what it is for me. If I just leave my if I leave my phone out of the bathroom,
00:24:46.480
man, I'll recapture an hour of my day easy every day. Yeah. But again, we're going hard. We're
00:24:52.100
blessed to love what we do. You know what I mean? And we just want to do more of it. But I've I've
00:24:56.440
framed it up where I'm going to get more of what I want to get done by making sure I shut down and
00:25:01.980
give myself a little window of time without the blue light. So I get into deep sleep faster. I stay
00:25:06.360
there longer. I wake up feeling the way that I want to feel. And then, you know, nutrition, it's a few
00:25:13.160
simple levers, you know, then we put that on autopilot. And the whole thing just becomes one
00:25:19.020
big game, you know? What about the so what about just that daily minutiae, you know, the stuff that
00:25:24.920
just comes up, you don't plan for, you know, it's 15 minutes here. It's five minutes here. I'm at the
00:25:33.100
dentist's office right now. So trust me, like, you know, I had put it off. I'm 18 months out from the
00:25:37.840
last appointment, you know, and so literally, I'm living it right now. I gotta I'm gonna drive 90
00:25:41.920
minutes home. Here I am not in my studio. There you go. But if I have to do anything, you know,
00:25:47.400
Seneca said the wise man does nothing reluctantly. So in Buddha said the same thing, you're gonna do
00:25:53.080
anything to do with all your heart. Like, so when I'm going to do something, I radically accept it,
00:25:57.280
then I'm all in. And then, you know, you can stack different things or whatever. But but the reality
00:26:01.880
is that's life. And then, you know, business wise, I'm blessed to have a team. And I'm really,
00:26:07.420
really disciplined in doing what I and only I can do. And then leveraging the rest and empowering
00:26:12.800
the team to do what they're great at, you know. And then it just is what it is. And I also try to
00:26:18.320
use those moments as opportunities to, to appreciate things, you know, the DMV, you know,
00:26:24.580
like, we're blessed to have the lives we have, right? We go in there, we get this service and
00:26:28.300
easier said than done. And I had a fun experience with the passport office the other day. I'm like,
00:26:32.640
wow, you came in hot, dude, I'm like 20 seconds in. And I'm like, I'm trying to be cool. And you
00:26:38.160
know, like, be all awesome. Like, oh, bless you. Wow, I'm the first appointment of your day. We're
00:26:43.260
already getting that heat. All right, cool. But it is what it is, you know, and we live in a life where
00:26:47.880
we're so blessed, you know, and we can take it for granted, or we can take it as granted. And the best
00:26:52.940
among us, you know, remember to be grateful for the little things, especially when we find them
00:26:57.500
annoying. You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, look, I mean, now that you say that,
00:27:03.760
I'm thinking about what I was doing as I was waiting, you know, 1520 minutes, which again,
00:27:08.480
is not a long time at the DMV. Like, I heard the person in front of me, they checked in at the
00:27:14.600
window. They're like, do you have an appointment? The lady said no. And she's like, yeah, it's a two
00:27:18.500
hour wait. If you don't have an appointment. I'm like, oh, dang. And the guy's like, yeah,
00:27:22.500
he actually waited. I was like, oh my gosh, like just go home and just make an appointment for
00:27:29.280
tomorrow. But what I was going to say is I was on my phone. I, I was, I cleared out my entire email
00:27:36.460
inbox. Um, I followed up on all my social media DMS. Uh, I made a couple of gratitude texts and I
00:27:43.080
was like, Hey man, appreciate you for this. Love you for this. Thanks for this. Thanks for that.
00:27:47.180
I made a post on social media. So it's like, it's not a complete waste. If to the quote that you said
00:27:53.600
earlier, and I wrote it down here, the wise man does nothing reluctantly that that makes a lot of
00:27:59.240
sense to me. Yeah. And you stacked it up, you know, it is what it is. It's great, man. Let me just step
00:28:05.620
away from the conversation very quickly. Uh, one aspect of Brian's message that we haven't really
00:28:11.220
got into today is the concept of making each day a masterpiece. And once I figured this out in my
00:28:18.560
own life, the world around me started to change, but that really isn't entirely true. Nothing
00:28:24.300
changed per se. I just began to see opportunities in a new light, not previously available or
00:28:32.100
recognizable to me. Uh, and that's one of the concepts that we teach in our free battle ready
00:28:37.340
program. And when you sign up, you're going to unlock access to a series of emails that are
00:28:42.420
designed to help you paint the masterpiece of your life in the next 90 days. And everything that you
00:28:49.300
learn, you'll be able to apply for the rest of your life, creating an almost unrecognizable life
00:28:55.540
for yourself. And I think more importantly, for the people that you care about, you can learn more
00:29:01.640
and you can get signed up at order of man.com slash battle ready. That's order of man.com slash
00:29:08.420
battle ready. Do that right after the conversation for now, let's get back to this great conversation
00:29:13.000
with Brian. I did some research. I always want to be researched as I, as I talk with somebody and
00:29:19.440
know who I'm talking with and what they're about. You said something that sounds really audacious and
00:29:25.620
a little bit arrogant, honestly. And I'm really curious about your take on it. When you say something
00:29:30.320
like, uh, you know, by the, by 2051, uh, I want to be sure that 51% of humanity is flourishing.
00:29:38.100
I'm like, well, like, what does that look like? How does that work? Like, what about people who
00:29:43.400
I'm very pessimistic about that statement, but I want to give you an opportunity to explain it.
00:29:48.220
Cause I'm really curious about it. Yeah. Yeah. So on one arm, I've got that tattoo. You can't see this,
00:29:53.400
but on the other, I've got heroic. Um, I actually got that from Martin Seligman,
00:29:57.280
the founder of the positive psychology movement. So up until the year 2000, almost all the research
00:30:02.500
on the science of wellbeing was on the negative stuff, depression, schizophrenia, et cetera. We
00:30:06.740
could take someone from negative 10 to zero in 2000, Martin Seligman, a guy named Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
00:30:12.320
and some others founded the positive psychology movement. At that meeting in 2000, they created a
00:30:17.780
moonshot goal for their movement. They wanted to help create the research that would help create a world
00:30:22.620
in which 51% of humanity was flourishing by 2051. The first time I heard that, like a decade ago,
00:30:28.200
I thought it was crazy. I still think it's crazy. And that's what I've dedicated my life to helping
00:30:33.120
create. I'm not saying I'm going to do that. I'm saying that I want to create, I want to play my
00:30:37.780
role humbly yet heroically. Well, I, you know, I run a company called heroic public benefit corporation.
00:30:44.280
Um, and I'm all in dude. I'm pessimistic about that. Frankly, you know? Yeah. I mean,
00:30:49.200
you look at our world, just when you think it can't get any worse, the last 60 days happen. I
00:30:53.460
mean, we live in, in historically significantly chaotic times. Um, but there's a science to it,
00:31:00.360
you know, and we did do a lot of research on our app and the work we do with corporate clients and
00:31:04.500
individuals. And there's a specific measure of flourishing. It's a, it's a simple scale that
00:31:09.440
measures someone's wellbeing. And we know already that if you use our app, um, with some coaching,
00:31:15.340
we do with corporate clients, you'll go from the 53rd percentile flourishing, which is average to
00:31:19.980
the seventies in 30 days. Um, but it's, it's an incredible, um, audacious statement that I got
00:31:26.280
from him. And to me, it's not arrogant. It's humble. Cause, cause I got to show up every day,
00:31:30.740
dude. And this is why I work my protocol as intensely as I do. Um, I'm all in man. I mean,
00:31:36.460
and you look at protector back there, you know what the word hero means in ancient Greece?
00:31:40.420
Uh, no, I don't. It means protector. So in ancient Greece, when they were coming up with a word for
00:31:46.260
hero, dude, it wasn't tough guy or killer of bad guy. The word they came up with was protector.
00:31:51.860
So a hero has strength for two. A hero, isn't a victim. A hero runs toward the sound of the,
00:31:57.560
of the, it wasn't gunfire in that point. Um, but dude, we stand up, we do what we need to do to earn
00:32:03.500
and forge that strength for two. And our secret weapon is love. We're committed to something bigger
00:32:08.380
than ourselves. And I've dedicated my life to a mission. That's going to force me to bring out
00:32:11.980
the best in me that we've trained 10,000 coaches from a hundred countries. Um, and we're just getting
00:32:17.220
going, you know? Um, but it's an insane goal. There's no question about that. And I hope it
00:32:22.040
doesn't come across as, as egotistically arrogant. Um, it's an audacious goal. I'm unapologetically
00:32:27.840
ambitious in what I feel called to do. Um, but it's not me. It's, it's how do we, you and me
00:32:33.600
come together and be our best selves, iron sharpens iron. And how do we lead our community as well?
00:32:38.520
And how do we do that in aggregate? And then we do have a shot, you know, if we can get millions
00:32:42.420
of people lighten up to be the protectors, to be the individuals capable of, of, um, of leading,
00:32:49.000
we can make a significant difference. There's no question in my mind, you know? Um, and we've got
00:32:54.020
27 years to do it. So let's get to work, right? Well, and I don't say it and I hope it doesn't come
00:32:58.940
across as I'm saying it as an indictment against you or anything like that. I'm just thinking to
00:33:03.100
myself, probably similar to the way you saw it when you first read it, like what, like what does
00:33:07.740
flourishing even mean? And you said there's some metrics. I'm really curious about what the, what,
00:33:12.820
what, what would be a metric of flourishing? I mean, you could talk about, uh, you know,
00:33:17.760
financial capital, I would say, um, overall maybe job satisfaction, uh, probably some level of
00:33:25.920
confidence I imagine is in there, but are there other metrics that determine what flourishing actually
00:33:30.760
is? Yeah. So then, um, to step back, there's two different motivations, right? There's extrinsic
00:33:36.480
and instruments intrinsic. So extrinsic is what we've been seduced to go after the fame, the wealth
00:33:41.100
and the hotness scientists say, even if you are successful in pursuit of fame, wealth and hotness,
00:33:47.060
even if you were successfully pursuing them, you will be quote, less psychologically stable than people
00:33:53.100
pursuing intrinsic stuff. So flourishing is a measure of how well you're mastering the intrinsic
00:33:57.740
stuff. Are you becoming a better person, which would involve purpose, confidence, all those other
00:34:02.580
things. And then do you have deep personal relationships? Are you prioritizing that
00:34:06.920
relationships and love is like, dude, some say that, that healthy life is love, full stop.
00:34:12.880
Um, and then are you making a contribution to your community, not measured by Instagram followers or
00:34:17.900
square footage in your house or whatever it is, you know? So when we focus on those intrinsic
00:34:23.480
motivators, which we can measure, you know, do you feel that you're becoming a better person
00:34:27.540
and mastering yourself and your craft? Do you feel like you're deepening relationships? Do you feel
00:34:31.980
like you're making a contribution to your community? Those three things are going to be the cornerstones
00:34:36.400
of a healthy flourishing life. Um, you can measure them and you can improve them. And this is my life's
00:34:43.300
obsession, ancient wisdom, modern science. And we've done a lot of scientific research on our coach
00:34:48.420
program and on our app with leading wellbeing researchers, randomized controlled studies that have
00:34:54.560
proven the efficacy of what we're talking about right here. Cause there's simple fundamental
00:34:58.620
things you can do that simply fundamentally change your life. Um, but I get it. And I'm, I'm, um,
00:35:04.500
obviously skepticism is important, you know, and just rational attunement to things that actually
00:35:09.720
work and getting out of the raw, raw, palm, palm waving. And for me, I keep on saying it, but it's
00:35:14.560
ancient wisdom, modern science, practical tools. It needs to work or not, you know, and you can
00:35:19.260
scientifically measure these things on an individual level. And by definition, you'll affect
00:35:24.220
change globally if we can do so in aggregate. But why I have an affinity to you is you're training
00:35:29.880
heroes. That's literally what I'm committed to doing with heroic. We train heroes is what we do.
00:35:35.460
Like that is our, one of our taglines, you know what I mean? Let's go, let's do the work.
00:35:39.680
That's what I'm seeing when I look at you and the order of man and sovereignty and what it means to be
00:35:44.820
a true man and that healthy level of masculinity fully expressed in service to something bigger
00:35:49.700
than ourselves. I mean, that is heroic literally by definition. Yeah. And look, I mean, even just
00:35:55.680
to go back to skepticism or even the, even the word pessimism, pessimism, which we both use is
00:36:00.740
like, I know there's a lot of people out there who they're pessimists just because like, they like
00:36:06.840
to stir the pot and you know, you see him at work. Everybody knows the guy at work. Who's not
00:36:13.240
really there to say, Hey, let's, let's, you know, let's red team this thing and figure out what's
00:36:18.400
wrong with it so we can improve it. Let's just try to blow it up for the sake of destroying things or
00:36:23.740
making people feel shitty. And that's the difference. Like if more people were cautiously optimistic,
00:36:30.440
maybe is a better phrase to use and, and said, okay, well, what does that mean? What does that look
00:36:36.300
like? How can we get there? What problems exist? What problems do we need to solve and how can we solve
00:36:41.780
them? That's significantly better than saying that's stupid. That's not going to work, which
00:36:46.380
is what unfortunately I think way too many men do. Yeah. And then, you know, I kind of look at it as
00:36:52.220
like, there's a bell curve, you know, and there's always a virtuous mean, you know, there's a vice of
00:36:56.920
excess, just like there's a vice of deficiency. So if you have a healthy, virtuous level of optimism,
00:37:02.380
um, you're not, you're not cynical, right? Nor are you Pollyannishly optimistic. Like this is a very
00:37:10.820
grounded sense of, well, what do I want? We talk a lot about targeted thinking in my work.
00:37:15.940
So what do I want? Right. And then what do I need to do to get it? And then there's a whole science to,
00:37:21.900
um, setting goals and, and, um, achieving them obviously, but, but it's different than what
00:37:27.300
most people think. And the most important part of it is rubbing it up against reality. No naive
00:37:32.580
optimism allowed. You've got to look at the obstacles, you know, Stockdale paradox style. You got to know you
00:37:37.840
can achieve what you want, but you got to embrace reality. The more ruthlessly, the better, and then
00:37:43.040
see what's in the way, what you're going to need to do to get over it. And then again, get to work
00:37:47.460
paying the price. But I'm with you, dude, on the grounded optimism. Um, and, uh, it's got to be
00:37:53.680
rational. I mean, you have to actually believe that you can do it. I think it's on one side of
00:37:58.200
impossible or the other. Um, well, it's not impossible. There's no question. It's, it's not
00:38:02.500
impossible. It's very close to it, but we got, you know, uh, what else are you going to, what else
00:38:09.060
are we going to do? You know what I mean? And then it starts with me. It starts with you. It starts
00:38:12.540
with the individual listening and it's like, all right, let's go. That might be the best case that
00:38:16.740
you can make right there. Like what's the alternative. That's it. Like either you can be a good person and
00:38:24.680
you can help people or you can do the alternative and you can screw people over and you can take
00:38:29.400
advantage of people and make people feel like garbage. So what do you want to do here? Like
00:38:34.500
there's no case for the other option in my mind anyways. Yeah. And then let's go light the fire,
00:38:41.780
activate, enter the forge. You know, the subtitle of the book is activate your heroic potential.
00:38:46.420
So there are 451 little micro chapters because it takes 451 degrees to ignite a fire, but then you
00:38:53.360
got to get to 2200 degrees. You got to go from activation to the, the forge is 2200 degrees.
00:38:59.400
That's where a fort is. A sword is forged. Um, and what I see in your work, you know,
00:39:03.960
that unapologetic intensity, that's not maniky. We're not talking about ungrounded anything it's,
00:39:10.280
but it's, there's a ferocious commitment to do the work, pull your load. You know what I mean?
00:39:14.420
Like, like, yeah, you know, conquer the fear and laziness is how my coach Phil Stutz puts it
00:39:20.060
quoting his favorite teacher, Rudolph Steiner, two things getting in the way of us doing these things.
00:39:25.100
It's fear and it's laziness. All right, well, let's get to work. Um, conquering both of those.
00:39:30.860
And that's more than enough to keep us busy for a lifetime. So let's quit complaining about anyone
00:39:34.960
else and anything else and get to work. You know, I'm glad that you did the 451 instead of the 2200 or
00:39:42.560
whatever. Cause that just seems like way too many things. If I'm alive, it's volume one. So if I'm
00:39:49.980
alive over the next 25 years, I hope to produce five more of them, but yeah, yeah, we'll start out.
00:39:54.580
We'll start out small. I, the thing I did like about the book though, is if there's a particular,
00:39:59.340
I wrote down the, the, there's seven sections really. And so, you know, I'll pull out one of
00:40:05.000
them, which is dominate the fundamentals. And in there, there might be, you know, 30 things that you
00:40:09.560
can do. And maybe that's, that's your struggle. Maybe, you know, that that's where you need to
00:40:14.660
focus and you don't need to read the entire book today, but you can pull out one of these items
00:40:20.440
and say, all right, uh, you know, today I need to focus on, uh, you know, showing up fully at work
00:40:27.640
or, or showing up fully for, for my daughter or whatever it might be. Right. And you can just pull
00:40:33.300
out whatever you need to pull out based on where your integrity gap might be in any given moment
00:40:39.360
on any given day. That's exactly it. And I wrote it, you know, it's a dense book, you know,
00:40:45.040
a thousand pages, but each chapter is one, two, three pages long. So in and out, you know, here
00:40:50.360
you go more wisdom and less time. It's kind of one of the things we've done. I've done with my work
00:40:55.280
over the last 20 or so years, but that's right. You can open it up anywhere. We've got seven
00:40:59.320
objectives that I walk people through. Um, and then within each of them, you can find hopefully,
00:41:04.720
you know, uh, an idea that can fire you up for that day. Um, and you can read it while
00:41:09.820
you're waiting at the DMV, you know, you could have busted out five chapters there and let's
00:41:12.760
go. So super simple. I feel like maybe I should go back to the DMV just so I can do it.
00:41:21.020
You got a mobile office, man. That's right. So you said your coach is stuck. So he, he has
00:41:28.300
that documentary. He's, uh, what's the guy's name? Jonah Hill, right? That's his, uh, his therapist
00:41:33.620
too, I think. And they did that documentary on Netflix that came out. What? Not too long ago.
00:41:38.340
Yeah. So it's called Stutz. He's kind of known as the Hollywood guy, but I found him after he worked,
00:41:44.200
he wrote a book called the tools and I found it like 10 years ago. And I'm like, this book's amazing.
00:41:49.420
Um, wound up starting working with him seven years ago. We've done 400 one-on-one sessions.
00:41:54.380
Really? Wow. Okay. Yeah. Kind of, kind of my spiritual father, you know, uh, and, um,
00:42:00.440
deep influence on me, but just a brilliant guy who, uh, uh, has found a really practical way to
00:42:07.060
apply these ideas we're talking about. Um, and that movie was great. Cause Jonah went to him. I go to
00:42:12.320
him more for coaching, you know, um, what he does is more coaching than anything. But, uh, Jonah talks
00:42:17.460
about his own experience with his mental health challenges. And it's a great movie. You know,
00:42:22.380
you got a therapist dropping F-bombs with Jonah Hill, you know, it's like, it's a great way guys.
00:42:26.620
All right, there you go. Like it's okay to talk about your challenges, but it's really important.
00:42:32.860
The idea was to democratize and to de-stigmatize talking about these issues, you know, so it's a
00:42:38.660
beautiful film in that regard and a lot of practical, um, guidance, you know, but he's just
00:42:43.800
a brilliant man that, um, you know, has deeply affected me. I mean, especially for men too, you
00:42:48.720
know, you talk about the language. Occasionally I'll get guys who are like, oh, well, you know,
00:42:51.940
you shouldn't swear. And, and I actually agree with that. Like I tried to use, I tried not to use
00:42:56.500
profanity. I, I do occasionally it slips out, just, you know, part of my language. Um, but
00:43:02.640
also to the guys who were like, you shouldn't swear. I'm like, well, you wouldn't email me
00:43:06.320
if I didn't like, we wouldn't be having this conversation if I didn't right now. So, you
00:43:10.560
know, a few choice F-bombs, uh, well-placed F-bombs aren't really going to hurt anybody.
00:43:16.400
In fact, maybe it's just the jar that you need to, uh, start listening a little closer
00:43:23.440
That's great. Yeah. My joke is I'm Mr. Rogers in public. Cause
00:43:26.440
I want kids listening and I want so many people, so many people, dude, just, it, it, it becomes
00:43:32.000
a thing, you know what I mean? It becomes another marketing hack of, yeah, I'm going to be the
00:43:35.240
one that puts these words and book titles and stuff and bless them, but we can do better
00:43:39.500
than that. You know? I mean, and again, then I'm also among friends. I can be a bit of a
00:43:43.720
swashbuckling Navy seal language wise, but there's a time and place for everything I think, you
00:43:47.960
know? And knowing, knowing when, um, and how to show up in integrity with who you are, I think
00:43:53.600
is super important. And it's just a, it's a choice point, right? How do you want to express
00:43:57.380
yourself? Is it, is it a deliberate act or is it kind of, you know what I mean? Just
00:44:03.420
You, you said something earlier and I wasn't familiar with it. You said, I think what you
00:44:07.580
said is Stockdale paradox. Is that right? Did I, I wrote that down. What is that? I'm not
00:44:13.080
Yeah. Uh, dude. So it's one of the micro chapters in the book, Jim Collins, my favorite
00:44:17.960
business guy. Um, he's just a brilliant guy, but, but James Stockdale is a good to
00:44:25.260
Good to great, great by choice, built to last, um, a bunch of, of different ones. Um, beyond
00:44:30.500
entrepreneurship 2.0 is actually my favorite one of his books as a sidebar, which is kind
00:44:35.380
of the best of, of all that. Anyway, he interviewed James Stockdale back in the day, vice Admiral James
00:44:40.540
Stockdale was the commanding officer of the prisoner of war camp in Vietnam. So he was
00:44:45.700
shot down early and, um, he was the commanding officer of all the prisoners of war during the
00:44:51.000
Vietnam war. And so he was also a practicing stoic. So he had studied at Stanford, got a
00:44:57.000
master's in something and, and wound up falling in love with Epictetus. So when he was shot
00:45:01.640
down, literally on the way down, dude, he's parachuting down and he's like, all right, I'm
00:45:05.020
leaving the land of technology to the land of Epictetus 2,000 years ago. And he was
00:45:10.060
immediately beaten and all this stuff. But, but rule number one of stoicism is you have
00:45:14.580
control over some things and you don't have control over other things. That's rule number
00:45:18.800
one. The only things you have control over are your thoughts and your behaviors. So the
00:45:23.580
Stockdale paradox is, um, is this. So Stockdale was asked by Jim Collins who survived the camps
00:45:31.700
and who died. And he said, interestingly, reflecting on what you commented on before, he said the naive
00:45:37.000
optimist died because the naive optimist thought they'd be freed. And they thought they'd be freed
00:45:42.360
by like Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving came and went and they're like, Oh, well, Christmas, I'm going to
00:45:46.300
be free. No Christmas comes and goes and shoot. They're not free yet. Okay. Easter. I'm going to
00:45:50.640
be free by Easter. Anyway, they go through this naive optimistic and then they just give up and then
00:45:55.100
they die. And he said, the ones that survived were the ones that never gave up faith. They never lost
00:46:01.060
hope that they would eventually be freed, but they also embraced the constraints of reality,
00:46:06.080
the harsh reality that it was going to be years. And Stockdale said, it's going to be at least five
00:46:09.860
years. So he never gave up hope he'd be freed, but he also knew it was going to be insanely hard.
00:46:14.640
And it took him seven years to get free. So that's the Stockdale paradox. You never give up hope,
00:46:19.420
but you embrace reality. And this is another thing we've been seduced to think it's supposed to be
00:46:24.040
easy. So that's the most pernicious lie we've been told is you should have already achieved all the
00:46:29.820
success you want. And oh, by the way, you went after the wrong things, fame, wealth, and hotness.
00:46:33.980
You should have already had it and it should be easy. So when you face problems, something's wrong
00:46:38.140
with you, but you got to know it's supposed to be hard. That's rule number one of a good life.
00:46:42.420
Then you put in the effort and you're not going to get fixed overnight. It's going to take you days
00:46:47.420
and weeks and months and years to create the life you truly want, that you're truly proud of.
00:46:51.560
But the good news is the moment you start living in integrity, you change the momentum and you
00:46:56.220
start feeling more and more alive. But that's the that's the Stockdale paradox. One of the I respect
00:47:02.860
him and admire him. He's one of my heroes. I actually have now that you explain it, I have
00:47:09.020
heard of that. I didn't know that it was the Stockdale paradox, but I heard that if you're
00:47:12.960
overly optimistic, like you said, you'd give up. But if you're a pessimist, then you're going to die.
00:47:18.420
And it's those ones who are realistic about the situation who don't give up hope. I have heard of
00:47:23.760
that. I do want to challenge one thing you said, and only because I'm challenging it in my own
00:47:28.480
thought process. And I'm curious as to what you say. You said it's not supposed to be easy. It's
00:47:33.500
supposed to be hard. And, you know, I've gone through some of my own stuff over the past year
00:47:39.320
and a half. And I see what a lot of other men are going through, through the work that we do.
00:47:43.620
And I think that there's a lot of guys who believe that it only counts if it's hard. And so they'll
00:47:50.060
make life harder than it needs to be, or they'll be overly harsh on themselves. And then they end up
00:47:57.200
beating themselves into submission. And I think I kind of did that to myself. And that's part of the
00:48:04.440
reason I turned to alcohol as a way to escape and cope and all of that stuff. And there's a whole other
00:48:10.020
story there. But beating myself into submission, instead of affording myself some grace and allowing
00:48:20.840
myself to learn, like, what are your thoughts on that? Well, my thoughts are, I want you to push
00:48:25.600
back on everything, because this is such a good conversation. And those are two different things
00:48:29.980
to recognize that life is inherently hard is different than shaming yourself and all that stuff.
00:48:35.840
And from my vantage point, when we actually embrace just how hard life is, you give yourself a lot
00:48:41.560
more grace. And you realize, dude, I'm not alone. Everybody's struggling right now. So it's okay that
00:48:46.320
I'm one of the individuals struggling. And there's a science of self-compassion. That's really important
00:48:52.340
that I talk about a lot of my work. So self-compassion has three components. Number one, and this is a
00:48:59.700
science and the opposite of self-compassion is shame. Shame is a decent seasoning. It's not a 0%.
00:49:05.580
You want to have a certain level, one, two, 3%, maybe a little salt, you know what I mean? A little
00:49:09.940
salt and pepper on the overall main dish. Well, you want to be properly holding yourself to high
00:49:15.380
standards. But 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80%, dude, you don't eat that. So you want to sprinkle it in. So
00:49:20.940
the opposite of shame is self-compassion. The first thing you need to do is what they call common
00:49:25.520
humanity. So if you think you're the only one experiencing life's challenges, you're going to
00:49:30.280
shame yourself more. You're not going to give yourself grace. No, you're not alone. Every single human
00:49:34.420
being across history, all cultures have experienced the challenges you're facing. It's not because
00:49:40.180
you're you. It's because you're human is how one of my other coaches put it back in the day. That
00:49:44.800
gave me so much freedom, dude, because that's when I used to really beat myself up. I thought it was
00:49:49.260
me. I thought I had a character flaw. Something was inherently wrong with me versus what BJ Fogg says.
00:49:55.600
He says, it's not a character flaw. It's a design flaw. You haven't been taught how to live a good
00:50:00.380
life. So what if you were taught how to do these things? And just because you failed over and over
00:50:04.740
and over at changing behaviors doesn't mean you're a loser. It means you had a losing strategy. Let's
00:50:09.700
build a better, better designed strategy. So common humanity, and then you got to be nice to yourself,
00:50:15.720
push yourself, but do it like you would your seven-year-old basketball team. I hope, I know
00:50:20.400
you're not that guy. There are coaches that are those guys. It depends. Sometimes those little
00:50:26.860
turds deserve what they get from me. Those little turds get a little bit of heat. I get it. Dad
00:50:31.440
turns up the heat. Let's go. But even that's done with a level of love. You know what I mean?
00:50:35.020
Of course. So you're kind to yourself is the point. And then the third thing is you got to notice when
00:50:40.140
you're not being kind to yourself or when you think it's just you. That's the science of self-compassion.
00:50:44.800
You absolutely must give yourself grace and you simultaneously must hold yourself to high
00:50:50.740
standards. Then you shine a flashlight on what's working in your life and what's not. Then you bring
00:50:57.260
a hammer to what needs work and what you're going to do differently. So it's a really important
00:51:02.380
conversation. And then when you get that, it all becomes fun. So if I'm going up Mount Everest,
00:51:09.320
I'm not bitching about the weather. I know the weather's going to be tough. So when I get hammered
00:51:14.420
with health or relationship or work challenges, I don't complain. I laugh. Literally, personally,
00:51:20.040
I laugh and say the heroic gods are blessing us with an awesome challenge right now. Thank you for
00:51:24.160
the storm. Boom. Time for me to practice my philosophy. Epictetus said when life gives you
00:51:29.280
challenges, act as if the gods have given you an Olympic wrestler and you want to be your best.
00:51:34.960
You've got this young wrestler to go up against. Those are your challenges. That's the attitude we want
00:51:39.600
to bring. I'm not saying you should suffer. I'm saying the pain is inevitable. You're
00:51:44.400
suffering is optional, but it's your resistance to the pain that is creating the suffering,
00:51:49.780
right? This is a whole other conversation. When I can embrace it, I can use it. I can use it as fuel
00:51:56.420
the same way you use the weights in your gym to get stronger. You don't lift styrofoam weights in life.
00:52:02.660
You lift real weights. Well, that's what your challenges are. And when you approach them that way,
00:52:07.340
aka life's supposed to be challenging or hard, you smile and you bring it on. Even in the midst of
00:52:13.780
getting hammered, there's a certain subtle, you know, the Everest, Everest dudes, you know,
00:52:19.400
there are moments where you're like, Oh my God, I might get blown off the mountain while you're
00:52:22.500
focused. You know what I mean? But there's also a, this is what I signed up for. This is what I've
00:52:26.180
trained for. I want to be a protector. I want to be a hero for my kids and for my partner and for
00:52:31.360
my team and my community, et cetera, you know, and life takes on a deeper, um, meaning as we provide
00:52:38.800
and as we protect and do all the other things, you know? I, uh, I, I heard somebody, I wish I could
00:52:45.260
remember who told me, cause it was really powerful. They would run an exercise in, in a group environment.
00:52:50.340
And they would say that they want the participants to write down all of the negative things they think
00:52:55.660
about themselves. So I'm a loser. I'm a failure. I'm a bad dad. Uh, you know, I'm a drunk. I,
00:53:02.280
I've gone through bankruptcy and just write all the things they think horribly about themselves.
00:53:08.020
And then when they have that list, what they do is they then partner each other up with other people
00:53:13.160
and they say, I want you to take that list and I want you to read it. Like as if I, if you and I
00:53:20.460
we're partnered, I have to read this and say, Brian, you're a loser. You're a horrible person.
00:53:28.100
You are a pile of shit and, and people can't do it. Of course. Cause they're not going to,
00:53:35.020
they're not going to say that to somebody else. And it's an exercise in how harsh we are with
00:53:42.380
ourselves, but how generous, I think for the most part, we will be with other people,
00:53:49.840
but we won't, I think, I think this is especially true for men. We won't be that generous or kind
00:53:55.740
to ourselves. Dude, goosebumps. I mean, I, we're just getting to know each other, you know, but just
00:54:00.280
to feel you, like if, if I simply treated myself the way I would treat you, a guy that I really
00:54:05.400
respect and admire, just getting to know you, you know what I mean? But like, to your point,
00:54:08.640
I would never say that even to a stranger to be able to step back, but that takes the wisdom
00:54:13.300
and the discipline and the love and the courage in that moment. This is our day again. So in the moment
00:54:18.340
in which you start shaming yourself and start doing all those things you would never do to a
00:54:22.700
friend, step back. Cause in that moment, you're capable of being more. So again, the algorithm
00:54:27.680
works. If this, then are to, if this, then are to, it's the ultimate algorithm that answers all of
00:54:34.020
life's questions. What's the best you could do right now? It is never. Oh yeah. Yeah. Reminding
00:54:39.580
yourself that you are that, you know, whatever person you're shamed or all these different things that,
00:54:44.340
um, it's a discipline to notice when you're doing those things and to stop it. Right. And, and again,
00:54:50.360
to make it a game and it's hard to put into words how exciting it becomes. And the, the Stoics were
00:54:55.440
joyful. The Stoics learned how to control the negative thoughts and behaviors that allowed them
00:55:00.220
to have a life of deep meaning and purpose and lightness. There's a lightness that comes into your
00:55:05.320
life when you are again, closing that integrity gap, knowing that you're never going to do it
00:55:10.060
perfectly, but they called it eudaimonia, which again means good soul. You have this little
00:55:15.620
daimon, this little guiding spirit that the, the, the Romans called your genius. In Roman times,
00:55:21.560
everyone had a genius, just like in Greeks, they call it Greece. They called it your daimon.
00:55:25.880
The diminutive of daimon is demon. So we also always have a demon, demon daimon. Those voices are
00:55:33.740
barking at us all day, every day. We just need to slow down, talk to the daimon more and more
00:55:38.700
consistently live in integrity with what they're telling us to do. And then you experience a quote,
00:55:43.660
good soul, eudaimonia. And that feels great. Even in the midst of when it doesn't feel great,
00:55:49.620
there's something deeper than happiness. That's that joyful sense of I'm doing my best
00:55:53.940
in my, my current reality. Um, you know what I mean? We've all felt that when we do that,
00:56:00.960
our worst days can become our best days. Um, still having highs and lows, but those highs become
00:56:07.040
sustainably higher, the lows get scaffolded up. So we don't go off the rails when life inevitably
00:56:12.660
gets hard. You know, is that, is that concept of daimon and demon? Is that, would, would that be
00:56:19.100
the equivalent of in Christianity, you know, the spirit of God versus Satan, or is that something
00:56:24.800
different? A hundred percent, dude, I was raised Catholic. Look, I'm a good end of the day. You know,
00:56:29.220
I'm, um, uh, yes, that that's exactly it. And you can call it whatever you want to call it. We each
00:56:35.920
have our own, you know, wisdom and faith traditions. My thing is, are you living in integrity with it?
00:56:42.040
You know, I got, if we were at home, you know, on my studio, I've got all my heroes behind me.
00:56:47.020
My wife's right behind me. My, my kids are next to me. And then I've got Aurelius and Epictetus. I've got
00:56:52.280
Gandhi and Churchill, Eleanor Roosevelt, but I've got Jesus on the upper left. And that's exactly right.
00:56:58.420
And again, what would Jesus do? Well, that that's an unbelievably powerful reflection exercise.
00:57:04.300
It's an ancient stoic practice to think of your ideal sage, that individual that embodies the
00:57:09.320
qualities you want to embody. Okay. What would they advise you to do? I do it every morning in my
00:57:14.520
meditation practice. I invoke my heroes and my guides to give me guidance for that day. Um, and you know,
00:57:21.440
if we've lived in integrity with that, we'd be doing pretty well. What would Jesus do? There's always
00:57:26.560
that he, he, he's your demo right there. Always present. If that's your, your guide, you know,
00:57:32.160
but that's exactly right. Um, we have that guiding spirit and the less than helpful, um, spirit within,
00:57:38.900
you know? Yeah. We, you know, we can even, and I don't want to take Jesus or God out of the equation
00:57:44.820
because I'm, I'm, I'm a man of faith as well. And so I don't, I don't want anybody to misinterpret
00:57:48.880
what I'm about to say, but you could also do that with, with yourself. So you could say,
00:57:53.840
for example, if you're confronted with, uh, uh, a crisis, let's say you get into a bit of a road
00:58:00.300
rage or an altercation on the road, you could ask yourself something as simple as what would the guy
00:58:05.880
that I want to be do in this situation? Like if I, if it was like, if it was the guy that I wanted to
00:58:12.220
be like, that I was, that I looked up to that I wanted to be in five years, what would that guy do?
00:58:17.500
And then you can do that. It's so simple, dude. That's it. And scientists actually say,
00:58:23.140
that's the fastest way to get clarity on, on your, they call it a best self diary to think
00:58:28.160
about it. You in five years, you're your best version. Um, Matthew McConaughey says his conception
00:58:34.160
of, of a hero is the version of him. He's chasing always chasing. So that's a brilliant question is,
00:58:41.280
all right, what would the guy that I aspire to be do? And how do I make him proud? And this is where
00:58:45.740
these things are not chores. They're gifts you're giving to your future self because your choices
00:58:50.880
you're making right now and right now and right now are affecting you in an hour, in a day,
00:58:55.840
in a week, in a month. So give a gift to your future self that your future self is going to
00:59:01.160
look back at and say, thank you, dude. Perfect. We turned it around. You know, it's unfortunate.
00:59:05.360
It took us as long as it did, but here we go. Now we're starting the, uh, the forward motion,
00:59:10.080
but that's exactly right. And that's my, my whole life is connect to something bigger than yourself,
00:59:14.800
which is connected to the ultimate best self. And then those basic things, eating, moving,
00:59:20.020
sleeping, breathing, focusing, um, somewhat paradoxically are the most direct conduit to
00:59:26.400
our best selves. Because if you're tired and your energy sucks because you're making bad lifestyle
00:59:30.940
choices, it's very difficult to ask and get clarity on those questions. But when you take control of
00:59:36.720
those simple controllables, everything takes on a different, um, energy and velocity.
00:59:41.020
Yeah, man, that's powerful stuff. Well, admittedly, and in full disclosure,
00:59:46.100
I don't have a copy of your book yet. Your team is going to, cause we made this happen so quick.
00:59:50.460
Your team messaged me and they said, Hey, we've got something in the mail for you,
00:59:54.220
but I went through your website and your app and I'm like, this looks awesome. So as soon as we're done,
01:00:01.220
I'm actually going to sign up for it and go through it because I think there's a lot that I could value
01:00:05.720
from, uh, seeing, you know, the, the, the different objectives and everything in there. So,
01:00:10.260
and every once in a while I have a conversation like this, where I really connect with who I'm
01:00:14.820
talking with. I learned something from everybody, but man, I've enjoyed this conversation. If you
01:00:19.400
would just tell the guys, uh, where to pick up a copy of the book, you talked about the heroic app,
01:00:24.560
uh, the website, anything that you want to talk about and mention to direct the men to, uh, please
01:00:30.100
feel free to go ahead and do that. Yeah. And I'm looking forward to connecting on the other side of
01:00:34.240
this too. I'd love to tell you more about the app and I appreciate you making this happen so fast.
01:00:38.280
And I can't wait to get you the book and all the other things and we'll hook you up with the app
01:00:42.360
too. So we'll connect on the other side, but, um, R-A-R-E-T-E, you can get the book anywhere you
01:00:47.860
get books. Um, and then heroic.us is the website for our heroic app. You can also find the app in
01:00:55.860
your iOS and Android app stores. Um, the basic idea there is, um, I spent half of the last 25 years
01:01:02.920
reading great books and distilling them into little summaries. We call them philosopher's
01:01:08.040
notes, 20 minute summaries of 650 of the best books, ancient wisdom, modern science. You know,
01:01:13.620
people are too busy to read, right? But whether it's Jocko or, uh, you know, Angela Duckworth,
01:01:18.720
we talked about fill in the blank on your favorite teacher. I've probably featured the book. I need to
01:01:22.760
get yours in there. Um, but that's the heroic app. Then we also help you move from theory to
01:01:28.380
practice to mastery, getting clarity on who you are at your best. Um, and then recommitting to
01:01:33.600
being that best version of yourself every single day. Um, but that's heroic and R-A-R-E-T-E. And
01:01:38.420
dude, I'm just thrilled to be connected. I really appreciate your support. Admire who you are,
01:01:42.300
what you're doing and, um, honored to be here. Um, training some heroes together.
01:01:47.280
Likewise, man, the feelings mutual. So I appreciate you. Thanks for joining me today. Thanks for the work
01:01:51.980
that you're doing. We got a lot of, we got, we, we got a lot of work. 51% of humanity flourishing
01:01:57.700
by 2051. We got a lot of work to do. I appreciate you, brother. Thanks for joining me today.
01:02:04.700
Gentlemen, there you go. My conversation with the one and only Brian Johnson. I love Brian's energy.
01:02:09.860
I love what he talks about him and I were on very similar wavelengths. Um, there was a couple of
01:02:14.980
things that I don't know that we disagreed on necessarily, but I wanted to clarify and, and,
01:02:20.480
and get a little clarification on what he meant. And, uh, I was really excited to hear about his
01:02:25.760
protocols, his new book, which I did suggest that I haven't got a copy of yet because we made this
01:02:31.100
thing happen so quick, but I am getting signed up for his, uh, heroic coaching program. He did talk
01:02:38.140
about having his own coach. He's coached over 10,000 coaches and yet you heard him. He has his own
01:02:43.980
coach. So even coaches have coaches and I'm going to be looking to get into his coaching program as
01:02:50.100
well. So please make sure you check out his work by a copy of his book, Arate, which is activate your
01:02:56.480
heroic potential. Look into his heroic training platform and tag him, take a screenshot, let him
01:03:04.080
know what you're listening to tag him, tag myself, let other people know, uh, go check out Montana
01:03:09.900
knife company.com. Check out store.order of man.com. Check out the battle ready course. Don't tell me I
01:03:16.000
don't have anything for you because we got it. Or if you're looking for a solution on how to be a more
01:03:21.340
well-rounded, more equipped, more righteous, capable man, it's my goal and my life's mission
01:03:28.280
to reclaim and restore masculinity. And most importantly, give you the tools that you need
01:03:33.280
to do the same in your own life. So those are your marching orders. Uh, we'll be back tomorrow for
01:03:40.140
our ask me anything. We've got some great questions that Kip and I fielded and that will be available
01:03:44.740
tomorrow. But until then go out there, take action and become a man. You are meant to be.
01:03:50.660
Thank you for listening to the order of man podcast. You're ready to take charge of your life
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and be more of the man you were meant to be. We invite you to join the order at order of man.com.